


Your Discs

by sipuli



Series: hhhhh i'm dream smp trash [5]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Canon Divergence, Manipulative Dream, Not Really?, POV Alternating, Pandora's Vault, Somehow, Technically?, When isn't he though, he's not sure about the details yet, sam is pissed off about having to help dream hurt his friends, traitor ranboo, tubbo is going to save the day
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28875474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sipuli/pseuds/sipuli
Summary: "Come meet me Wednesday. You and Tubbo ALONE. If anyone else shows up, the discs are gone forever."They knew it was a trap, but they had no choice.-An AU where Dream locks Tommy and Tubbo inside Pandora's Vault
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), No Romantic Relationship(s), Ranboo & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: hhhhh i'm dream smp trash [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2122566
Comments: 10
Kudos: 241





	1. The Trap

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this isn't too rushed, I wanted it out before the Big Lore Stream because most likely none of this will happen. This is my first time trying to write something longer than a 1k word oneshot and I'd be lying if I claimed I wasn't nervous. I hope you like it!

_Your Discs._

The letters are sharp and angular, carved onto the metallic surface of the compass, a promise and a threat. On the other side there’s a needle, pointing into a forest Tommy and Tubbo know nothing about. It’s untouched territory. Mystery and danger. On any other day Tommy would be excited about getting to explore new areas of the server, to find adventures and secrets and treasures - but today he’s scared.

He’s been nervously turning the compass around in his hands, staring at the text on the back of it, then the needle, then the text again. _Your discs_. His discs. This is going to be it, right? It has to be. Somewhere out there there’s a place this needle is guiding them to, and in that place the discs are waiting for him, just as if they never left his hands in the first place. After all this time, he’s going to have a chance of getting back everything he’s lost. For so long the discs have been almost in his reach, taunting him with their existence, slipping through his fingers if he tries to grab them - but now they are suddenly real, and close, and something that can be obtained. He is reaching his arm and his fingertips are almost brushing against the black surface. He just needs to reach a little bit further. He just needs to take them. He will take them. There is no other option, not anymore, not after everything that has happened because of them. He will beat Dream and take the discs, _his_ discs, back and then everything will be fixed and everything will be just like it used to be before everything went wrong.

He is grateful to have Tubbo by his side. They have been walking in silence, neither of them really knowing what to say, but Tubbo’s presence is still calming Tommy down. At least he knows there is still something he can count on, someone he can trust. He couldn’t trust Wilbur, or Dream or Techno - hell, he can’t remember the last time he has really, truly trusted someone else besides Tubbo. Every time he thought he could let down his guard and let someone else closer, it ended with a catastrophe, something he loved getting destroyed or taken from him. All the adults ever taught him was that letting anyone close enough to see him, to really see him, will always end badly. 

He can’t trust adults, not anymore. But he can trust Tubbo. If he stops trusting Tubbo, then he will truly have nothing.

It’s just like he said to Tubbo on the bench, on a day that feels like it happened an eternity ago. _Me and you versus Dream_. That’s how it has always been. It feels like everyone else around them dances in this complicated pattern of alliances and betrayals and friendships and favors and lies, and they form groups and sides and entire countries that rise and fall in the blink of an eye just to keep the wheels turning and in the center of the dance stands Dream, pulling the strings, carefully keeping the chaos from collapsing onto itself. He knows it all, he sees it all, he makes sure the dance never stops without truly taking part in it himself.

And then there’s Tommy and Tubbo, whose feet don’t take the right steps. They are a disturbance. A glitch in the system. Something that doesn’t fit into his careful planning, something that has caused the server to start slipping from his iron grip, something that needs to be stopped. That’s what this has always been about, everything else is just noise covering up what actually matters. _Me and you versus Dream_.

“I think this is the place,” Tubbo says, and his voice does not shake. Tommy isn’t sure he could say the same about his own. He doesn’t say anything, he just nods. The boys have stopped on the edge of a small glade, a long-awaited break in the endless trees. The sounds of birds and rustling leaves have faded away somewhere behind them and the forest is eerily quiet. Tommy finds himself more and more nervous, even if he doesn’t want to admit how scared he really is. So much has been leading them up to this point, so much buildup and anticipation, stakes that have been climbing higher and higher every time the discs have been handed or taken from one person to another. Their power has grown every time they have switched owners until they themselves have become more powerful than any of the people who have been holding onto them.

At this point he discs are the only way to stop Dream. That’s the real reason Tommy wants them back; not because they are important to him, but because they are important to Dream. As long as Dream has the discs, he can keep doing whatever he wants, he can keep hurting people and killing and destroying everything in his way, because he has the upper hand, he has something that will always secure his victory. If Tommy has the discs, he has leverage. Something he can try to control Dream with. His chest burns with rage as he thinks about everything they have lost because of Dream. The discs can’t bring back L’Manberg and they can’t bring back Wilbur, but maybe they can bring all of this to a stop. Maybe they can make sure Dream can’t hurt anyone else like he hurt them.

And that’s why Tommy can’t stop fighting for the discs, no matter how far he has to go for them. The discs are only important to Dream because they are important to Tommy, and they are only important to Tommy because they are important to Dream. If either of them stops fighting for them, they lose all their power. And Tommy can’t afford to lose the only thing on the server that could possibly be used to beat Dream, not now. The discs need to stay powerful because if they lose their power, Dream loses his only weakness.

Tubbo interrupts Tommy’s thoughts by gently nudging him and pointing at the middle of the glade. Tommy looks at the direction of his finger and sees the same thing Tubbo has noticed. There’s a small chest, innocent-looking enough, inviting them to come see what’s inside it.

Tommy feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. It can’t be this, there’s no way it’s this easy. Why would Dream just straight up give the discs to them, without a fight? Tommy and Tubbo knew the compass was a trap when they started following the needle, they aren’t stupid. And everything about this is screaming _trap, trap, trap_. Tommy glances at Tubbo and sees a reflection of his own thoughts on his face. Neither of them believe for a second that the discs are in the chest.

But do they have a choice? They know it’s a trap, but if they don’t walk into it, who knows what Dream will do? This is the path they chose to follow, and if it leads to the discs - one way or another - they can’t turn back just because the signs leading them forward were put there by their enemy.

“Should we check what’s inside?” Tommy’s voice is laced with fake carelessness, as if he isn’t clenching his hands into fists just to stop them from shaking.

Tubbo doesn’t answer, but he takes a step towards the chest. Then another. Tommy wants to follow him, he wants to be by his side when they open the chest, together, and see what’s inside - but something is holding him back. There is a weird, unsettling feeling in the back of his head. Where is Dream? Why isn’t he here? They were sure there would be a fight, because why else would Dream have told them to come alone? But Dream is nowhere to be seen. He didn’t lure Tommy and Tubbo here to fight them, this is something else… so why would he care if they brought an entire army with them? There’s something that doesn’t make sense, something that doesn’t click into place, but Tommy’s thoughts are clouded by the image of the discs floating in front of his eyes. All he knows is that his gut is screaming at him to grab Tubbo and get the hell away from this place as quickly as possible, before something horrible happens. 

He takes a step towards Tubbo and begins to form the words in his mouth, trying to find the right ones to voice his concerns, when he notices something around the latch of the chest. Slight redness, like… redstone.

“Hey, Tubbo, I don’t think you should -”

Too late. Tubbo has already grabbed the lid and opened the chest with an ominous creak that echoes in the empty glade around them. He turns his head towards Tommy, his mouth half open as if he’s about to say something, and then the ground underneath his feet opens into a giant pit. For a split second it looks like Tubbo is floating in the air, he looks more surprised than scared. And then he falls.

The scream that comes out of Tommy’s mouth surprises even himself. He runs towards the hole, but it has already closed just as quickly as it opened, leaving no traces of any kind of a trap on the ground. The grass is slightly swaying in the wind, unaware of what just happened beneath it.

“Tubbo!”

Tommy falls to his knees and furiously bangs the ground with his fists. “Are you there? Are you okay? Tubbo?” His fingers dig into the dirt, desperately clawing at the dirt, trying to force the trap to open again. “Answer me! Tubbo!”

“Don’t worry about him, he’s fine.”

The voice makes Tommy completely and utterly freeze. He presses his palms against the dirt, trying to ground himself, to prepare for what he’s about to see when he turns his head towards the voice. A thousand memories flood his brain, memories of pain and betrayal and something he thought was friendship and trust. Memories of words he knows were lies, but what he still can’t help but miss. A friendship that he’s been telling himself over and over and over again was nothing but lies and manipulation, lying on his bed on sleepless nights when he can’t bring himself to believe what he knows is true. He knows it, he _knows_ what was done to him was wrong, but on the worst days he finds it hard to remember.

He thought he could face Dream with Tubbo by his side. He wasn’t expecting to have to do it alone. He turns his head towards him, slowly and carefully, mentally preparing for what’s about to happen.

Dream is walking towards Tommy with slow, mellow steps - he clearly isn’t in a hurry. His hands are in his pockets, making him look less threatening, but there’s no doubt the sword that’s strapped on his back won’t be out in less than a second if it’s needed. His signature smiley mask looks ever more white and shiny than usual. Has he polished it for today? That one small thing, the way sunlight reflects from the white surface, is enough to crack Tommy’s carefully crafted, emotionless cover that he spent the last few seconds putting on. That shithead lured two teenagers into the woods to trap one of them in a pit like he was a hunter and Tubbo was some kind of a beast and he _polished his mask_ for the occasion? Tommy stares at the two black dots on the mask, merely an idea of eyes, and feels the burning hot rage slowly filling his cup, getting closer and closer to spilling over.

“What the fuck did you do? Where is Tubbo?”

Tommy tries to keep his voice steady, but it comes out as a cracked scream. He pushes himself off from the ground, intending to get on his feet, but Dream’s hand flinches dangerously towards the handle of his sword and he decides to stay on the ground. “Listen,” he hisses through his teeth, “if he’s hurt, if there is something dangerous down there or - or if you do anything to him -”

Dream chuckles lightly and takes another step closer to Tommy, who fights back the instinct to flinch. “Oh, are you going to fight me?” Somehow the black, unmoving smile on his mask perfectly matches the threatening tone of his voice. “I can see you’re wearing netherite armor. You’ve been doing some grinding, getting good gear, preparing for a fight. Too bad there’s not going to be one. You’re going to do exactly as I say and you’re going to come with me voluntarily, or suffer the consequences. I’d consider my next move very carefully if I were you. Tubbo is not hurt… yet. I can make that change very quickly. If you cooperate with us, I won’t.”

“Us? Who the fuck is ‘us’?” Tommy tries his best to resist the urge to draw his sword and charge at Dream. That would just be stupid and reckless. Normally something being stupid and reckless wouldn’t stop him - if anything, it usually does the opposite - but this isn’t just about him. As long as he can’t be sure Tubbo is safe, he has to hold himself back.

“You brought a friend, Tommy. So did I.” Dream tilts his head slightly. Even with the mask covering his features, Tommy can tell he is amused by the situation. “By the way, thank you for making this so easy for us. We were hoping you two would come here together. We needed you both to be here so we could separate you from each other with our little trap.”

Suddenly Tommy can see the signs clearly in front of him, against the pile of burning netherrack at the place where his house once stood. “You and Tubbo alone.” Of course. Why didn’t they see how suspicious it was? Why did Dream specifically mention Tubbo? They should have seen it. _He_ should have seen it.

“So you wanted Tubbo to open the chest, so he would…” Tommy can’t bring himself to look at Dream. How could he let this happen? He should have stopped Tubbo from opening the chest, he should have not brought him here in the first place, he should have he should have he should have -

“Well, it could have been either one of you. It just happened to be Tubbo. I actually kind of expected it to be you, if I’m being honest. You’re just enough of an idiot to run straight into a trap if you think your precious discs might be in there.” Dream’s voice is casual, even cheerful, a polar opposite of Tommy’s broken and defeated mood. “As for my friend,” he continues, turning around and waving his hand at someone Tommy can’t see, “would you mind joining us, Ranboo?”

Tommy’s head jerks up.

 _Ranboo_?

Slight rustling of branches and leaves accompany the tall half-enderman as he steps out of the shadows. Tommy can’t quite make out the details of his face, but he seems nervous - his shoulders are high and pushing forward, he’s glancing around himself as if he was scared that someone would try to jump him, his whole being looks scared and defensive. He looks wary. Unstable. Not like himself. He’s avoiding Tommy’s eyes, even more than usually.

“There you are!” Dream’s cheery voice sounds so out of place that it sends shivers down Tommy’s spine. “Ranboo here has been a _huge_ help lately, I really appreciate everything he’s done for me. He even kept one of your discs safe for a while, did you know that, Tommy?”

Tommy’s head is spinning with the amount of new information. Ranboo is on Dream’s side? He had his disc? And he didn’t say anything? He looks at Dream and then back at ranboo who’s approaching faster now, with a sword in his hand. “H-hey,” Tommy stammers, “why are you acting so weird? Put the sword away, man. We’re friends, right?”

“You’re not my friend.” There’s something unsettling in Ranboo’s voice, something Tommy can’t grasp. He sounds different than usual, and not in a good way. “No one on this server is my friend, you’re bad people, every single one of you! Don’t - don’t think I don’t know what you’ve done! Dream told me everything!”

“Stop that, you’re scaring me! I don’t know what Dream told you but he’s a scumbag and a liar, trust me, I know -”

“Stop trying to get into my head!” Ranboo’s eyes are glowing with anxiety and rage, the red and green brighter than ever. “You’re trying to manipulate me! You’re - you’re trying to use me! All of you! You took away my memories, my, my - my _safety_ , knowing what’s real and what isn’t, you -”

All of the sudden Dream’s hand is on Ranboo’s shoulder, and he flinches at first but then visibly relaxes. “That’s enough. Let’s calm down a little bit. You did really well, I couldn’t have done this without you.” He turns to Tommy, who could swear the smile on his shiny, white mask is even wider than it was before. “Ranboo is the one who told you two to come here today. He kindly left the signs at your, uh, house, and made sure you would _get the message._ ”

“No. No way. You’re lying.” Tommy looks at Dream and Ranboo, one of them staring back at him with no hesitation and the other one avoiding his eyes. It has to be a lie, Ranboo wouldn’t do this. It has to be a lie. It has to. Dream is just trying to do the same shit again, he’s trying to manipulate Tommy, he’s trying to get into his head - but why does Ranboo look so guilty, then? Why isn’t he denying it? A horrible realization sets into Tommy’s stomach as he sees the way Ranboo is leering at him, his eyes full of hate. The fear and disbelief are slowly giving way to rage. His hands close into trembling fists, and when he speaks, he spits the words out like curses.

“We should have fucking listened to Quackity. _Traitor_.”

He looks up at Dream, and even though the burning rage and disgust can be seen in his eyes, he looks more defeated than ever. “So what’s going to happen to me and Tubbo? Are you going to kill us?”

“Oh, believe me, if I wanted you dead, you would already be dead.” Dream chuckles again, as if he thinks his words were a particularly funny joke. Tommy doesn’t find it as funny as Dream does. Ranboo isn’t laughing, either. “No, didn’t I already tell you?” He leans closer and Tommy could swear the two black dots are staring straight into his soul. “You’re way too much fun. I’m not going to kill you, you’re not going to die for a long time. But I can’t have you running around freely either. I have to put you somewhere safe until I figure out what to do with you.” He straightens his back and looks down at the trap. “As for Tubbo, well… We can’t have him going back and telling people what happened here, now can we?”

Tommy is about to open his mouth, maybe to protest or to tell Dream where he can stick his stupid jokes and threats, but it only takes Dream a split second to draw his sword. Tommy might be prone to talk before thinking, but the point of a netherite sword only inches away from his face is enough to shut even him up. 

“We need to get going,” Dream commands. “Tubbo will be joining us later. Remember not to do anything stupid.”

And Tommy has no choice but to stand up and reluctantly walk up to Dream. He looks down at the ground beneath his feet and grits his teeth together. Tubbo is somewhere down there, in a trap, and doesn’t know what’s happening above him. _We’ll make Dream pay for this,_ he promises in his mind. _We’ll get out of this, together like we always do, and he’s going to fucking pay for this._

He throws one last dirty look at Ranboo, who looks like he wishes the ground would swallow him too, and follows Dream.

* * *

Four hours later Ranboo wakes up in the middle of the woods.

_Where… what was I… when…?_

He stands up, slowly, his feet don’t feel very strong at the moment and he doesn’t want to trip and fall like a clumsy idiot. That would be embarrassing. Not that anyone would see it though - he’s in the middle of nowhere with no other people in sight, and more importantly, with no memory of how he got there.

Why is he here? What was he doing again?

The familiar headache is creeping back, pressing against his temples with the rhythm of his heartbeat. He really, really needs to remember something, but what could it be?

Why is he here?

Without even thinking about it, he puts his hand into his pocket - and freezes. There is something inside that shouldn’t be there, something he doesn’t _remember_ being there. A crumpled up piece of paper.

He pulls it out. He opens it. His fingers are shaking, just a little bit.

_Thanks again! You were a big help :)_

No. No no no. No no no no no no -

Ranboo collapses to the ground and doesn’t even notice it. The little smiley face consumes his thoughts, burning the inside of his skull. He has to remember. He has to, he has to, and he can’t. His head, pushed into a rapid downwards spiral by Dream’s signature symbol, is full of one thought and one thought only.

What did he do?

What did he _do?_


	2. The Vault

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tubbo wakes up inside Pandora's Vault, but he is not defeated yet. If Dream wants to keep him and Tommy locked up, he will have to try a little harder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sam's prison is absolutely _terrifying_. I am both incredibly impressed and incredibly scared. It also gave me enough inspiration to speedrun the second chapter. Enjoy.

Tubbo doesn’t immediately open his eyes upon waking up. The room is too hot, everything feels too hot, maybe he’s sick and needs to stay in the bed. He likes the thought. He doesn’t really feel like going through paperwork and overseeing the construction of new buildings and mentally wrestling with his unruly cabinet today.

Only that he isn’t in his bed. The ground feels hard under his back, hard and so, so hot. Did he fall off his bed? Is that why his right ankle is hurting so much?

He opens one eye, slowly, and faces an unyielding wall of raw, bright light in front of him. It sends spikes of sharp pain through his brain. He closes his eyes again and presses his hands on his face, protecting his eyes from the light. 

What the hell?

Why is it so hot and bright? Is he in the nether?

That makes no sense. He barely ever goes to the nether these days, only when he needs to travel long distances, and the only person he would travel for is -

Tommy.

His eyes shoot open.

Tommy was there, they were together, they were going to meet Dream for the last time -

Memories flash rapidly behind his eyelids. The compass, the chest, the fall to the darkness of the pit. The pain in his ankle suddenly makes sense, it was a long fall. He remembers being in the dark for a long time, screaming for someone to help him, feeling the walls with his fingers, finding nothing but dirt and stone. Trapped. Like an animal.

He forces his eyes to open again, slowly letting himself adjust to the light. It isn’t as bad as the first time, the painfully bright whiteness is settling down into a gentle, orange glow. Is that lava?

He pushes his palm against the ground, trying to get up, and fails. He has no energy to even sit up. Why does he feel so exhausted? Why do his arms feel heavier than steel?

He manages to turn his head enough to examine the room around him. He’s lying close to the back wall, as far as possible from the lava flow, but that doesn’t make the air any less hot and heavy, any less hard to breathe in. He feels dizzy. He needs cold, fresh air.

The wall of lava doesn’t magically disappear just because Tubbo wishes it would. It keeps its steady downwards flow, unaware of the pain it’s causing to the prisoner.

The walls are obsidian. So are the ceiling and the floor. They would be next to impossible to mine through even if Tubbo had a pickaxe. Even if he didn’t feel the weight of a thousand rocks pressing his arms against the floor. Even if he had any idea what was on the other side.

Three walls of obsidian, and one of lava. A lectern, he sees when turning his head again, and a sink. A chest and a piece of glowstone. It feels absurd - the lava is already illuminating the room with its sickening orange glow, why would he need a glowstone in the room, too? He would laugh at the inconsistency, if his lungs didn’t feel like they were burning from the inside out.

He is starting to feel a little bit better, as the minutes pass. He manages to push himself up and sit on the floor with his back against the wall. It radiates more warmth to his already overheating body, but he doesn’t care. He stares at the orange wall, his eyes follow the flow all the way from the ceiling to the floor, and then he moves his eyes back up. He counts the amount of times his gaze slowly moves across the wall with the flow.

One time. Ten times. A thousand.

He has a lot of time to think, even though it feels like his brain is boiling inside his skull. He recalls the events of his capture in his head over and over again, trying to figure out what happened.

This is Dream, there is no doubt that this is Dream. He is behind this. But why? And how?

He thinks about his capture, there’s not much more to think about, it’s hard to remember that other things even exist. He sees it so clearly in his mind. They step into the glade. They see the chest. He opens it. It’s empty. He turns around, he’s about to tell Tommy that there’s nothing in there, and then there’s nothing under his feet. He falls, the trap closes, and he’s alone in the darkness.

He didn’t pass out immediately, he remembers sitting at the bottom of the trap and screaming until his voice went hoarse, but no one must have heard him. He waited for Tommy to reopen the trap and help him out, but it never happened. He waited for someone to come get him, anyone, even Dream, but it never happened. He kept screaming for help, until the tear streaks on his cheeks had dried, until he couldn’t get his throat to produce any kind of a sound anymore. And then he must have lost his consciousness, either because of a potion or a spell or simply because he was too exhausted to keep screaming.

And then he woke up in this room.

It’s clearly built to keep someone inside, to make sure they can't escape, but this feels… way too overboard. Unmineable walls, a barrier of lava, whatever the thing is that is making him feel so shaky and exhausted. It’s not a weakness potion, he knows what those feel like - they make you drowsy and slow in your movements and they make everything _hurt_. This is not the same, though it is similar. He knows this feeling, like the kind of exhaustion you feel when you have a high fever, only a thousand times worse. Where has he felt it before?

In his ocean base. Before he had slain the elder guardian. They do this, they have an aura of fatigue around them, that’s how they weaken their prey. There must be an elder guardian somewhere close by.

Whoever trapped him in here - either Dream or someone else through his command - went through the trouble of capturing an elder guardian. Just to make sure Tubbo couldn’t break the obsidian walls. When he already had nothing but his fists to work with.

Someone must really, really want to keep him in here.

Okay. That’s the situation. Things aren’t looking too good, but Tubbo has gotten out of worse places, hasn't he?

Well, he hasn't. But that’s beside the point.

No room is inescapable. This is just a problem for him to solve. He likes solving problems - he likes playing chess, he likes figuring out redstone contraptions, he likes playing puzzle games.

The room is a puzzle, and Tubbo is going to get a good score on this level.

First he goes through the entire room, block by block, inch by inch. He feels the cracks between the stones, looks for weaknesses, tries to fit his fingers in every crack and hole he can find. He stands on the lectern and examines the ceiling. He bangs the walls with his fists. He crawls as close to the lava wall as he can before the heat starts burning his skin. He flips through every empty book in the chest.

He doesn’t find anything, but that doesn’t make his determination falter. Things have looked hopeless before. They never really are.

He’s starting to get a picture of what the outside of the cell must look like in his mind. The walls are hot under his touch, there must be lava behind them. The whole room is probably enclosed in it, he can just see only one side of it because the wall is missing. Why, he doesn’t know. Maybe just to let him know what’s causing the unbearable heat. To show him that it’s something he can’t swim through. Or maybe to just add more to this torture.

The ceiling and the floor feel cooler. Not by much, but enough that Tubbo soon finds himself pressing his cheek against the floor just to feel the slightly cooler surface on his skin. Lying on the ground is the most comfortable position anyway. Heat rises towards the ceiling, and the air is slightly, just slightly more easy to breathe when his face is pressed on the floor. 

At one point one of the stones on the ceiling moves and reveals a small opening. Tubbo stares at it, lying on his back on the floor. It's the first time anything interesting happens in the room for hours and he’s ready to take anything.

Turns out it’s lunch time. A couple of raw potatoes fall through the opening, and then the stone moves back where it was and there’s no signs of any kind of hatch on the ceiling. One of the potatoes almost tumbles into the lava, but Tubbo manages to save it before it’s too late. He needs it. God knows how long he’ll have to wait for his next meal.

The potatoes don’t exactly taste very good, but they are food, and they’re proof that someone out there wants to keep him alive. Whoever is doing this isn’t going to let him starve to death. That wouldn’t make any sense, anyway - if they wanted Tubbo dead, they could have killed him when he was lying in the trap they had laid for him. No, they didn’t want to kill him. They just wanted to capture him.

And there’s another thing. Tubbo knows a lot about redstone, he’s spent hours upon hours working on his projects with the red powder staining his arms all the way to his elbows. He knows how a hatch like that works. There can’t be lava above him, there must be room for the contraption. And judging by the coolness of the floor, there isn’t any lava below him, either.

The walls are a non-starter, he knows he has no way of getting through the lava even if he somehow managed to break the obsidian. But the floor and the ceiling, especially the ceiling. There might be something there. A hint of a chance.

His thoughts are interrupted by a series of clanks and clatter. He lowers his eyes from the ceiling, from the mysterious hidden hatch he’s trying to figure out, and turns to face the lava wall. Something is happening. He sits up and leans his back against the back wall, waiting.

First he sees a thin stripe of empty space above the lava. Then it gets bigger and bigger, as the molten stone flows downwards, slowly but steadily, revealing the giant hall around the room. Tubbo’s eyes widen as he sees the bigger room he’s been inside of this whole time. Was there that much lava between him and… him and what? What’s on the other side?

He sees two figures, both wearing green. Both are also wearing masks, one of them green and resembling a creeper, the other one shining white, with a smiley face painted on it.

It’s Dream. Of course it’s Dream. But just because he was expecting it doesn’t make it any easier to accept.

But why is Sam here, too? Dream isn’t going to lock _him_ up as well, is he?

Sam doesn’t seem worried, though. Tubbo can’t hear their voices over the bubbling of the giant lava lake between them, but it looks like Sam is talking to Dream. Giving him instructions. Orders. And Dream is nodding.

It’s rare to see Dream take orders from anyone else. Usually it’s the other way around. Dream gives orders, and others obey or suffer the consequences.

Dream steps onto a small platform which then jerks into movement and starts carrying him across the lava. Tubbo finds himself more and more nervous the closer he gets. He doesn’t think Dream is going to kill him, he’s had plenty of chances so far, but the fact that he’s bothering to visit Tubbo at all is unsettling at the very least. He has something in mind, and usually when Dream has something in mind, other people suffer.

The platform hits the front of Tubbo’s room with a loud _thunk_ and Dream steps on the obsidian floor. Behind him the platform starts moving backwards towards Sam. Now they are both in the room, both trapped in the middle of the artificial lava lake.

“Hello, Tubbo,” Dream says with a neutral voice. Tubbo doesn’t answer. He doesn’t want to talk to someone whose face he can’t see.

Not that Dream would wait for an answer, anyway. He takes a step closer to Tubbo, looking around the room. “How have you been? Enjoying your new residence? I have to say, the fatigue effect feels pretty nasty. I didn’t remember how exhausting it is to even walk like this.”He keeps a short pause, letting the condescending tone of his voice sink in. “Not that you really have anywhere to walk to, I guess.”

“What do you want, Dream?” Tubbo tries his best to keep things such as fear out of his voice. He doesn’t have to try very hard. He sounds too tired for the fear to be audible behind the exhaustion. 

“Can’t I just visit you because I want to?” Dream asks. “Do I have to have a reason?” He leans on the lectern and looks down at Tubbo, the white surface of his mask reflecting the orange glow all around them. It somehow manages to make him look even more scary than usual. “I just wanted to know what you think about me and Sam’s masterpiece. The prison.” He gestures vaguely around the room. “Welcome to Pandora’s Vault.”

A prison.

Oh.

 _Well_ , Tubbo thinks, _in that case this is not just a room after all. It’s a cell._

The worst possible cell he could imagine.

He doesn’t ask why Dream has brought him here. He doesn’t ask how long he’s going to have to stay. He doesn’t ask where Tommy is.

He asks: “What do you mean by you and Sam’s?”

“He helped me out with the redstone,” Dream replies, very _casually_ , as if this was just normal small talk. “The design is mostly mine, with a few ideas from him sprinkled in, and he took care of the practical side of things - bringing my vision to life, so to say. And building the whole thing, of course.”

Tubbo’s mood drops. If Sam is behind the redstone contraptions that keep this prison working, getting out is going to be a lot harder than he thought it would. He has worked on redstone projects with Sam, he knows how good he is with this stuff.

He has always considered Sam a friend, he didn’t think he would help Dream. Then again, who’s to say he had a choice? Dream could have threatened him, or simply offered a payment so big that he couldn’t refuse. Tubbo wants to believe that Sam wouldn’t have done this if he knew it would be Tubbo who was going to end up inside his creation.

“Anyway,” Dream continues, “I just wanted to drop by and say hi. I figured you might feel a bit lonely. Especially since, well…” His voice is getting dangerously soft, the fake friendliness that once made Tubbo think he could trust him creeping into his tone. “Since Tommy didn’t seem to care about what would happen to you.”

That gets Tubbo’s attention. “Tommy? What does he have to do with this?” In a horrifying, fleeting moment Tubbo realizes that he doesn’t know what has happened to Tommy. He was so busy trying to figure out a way to escape that he didn’t even remember to worry about his best friend. Guilt sets into his stomach, burning even hotter than the air around him.

“Well, he’s the reason you’re here.” Dream takes another step closer andTubbo presses his back against the wall just slightly harder, praying that the wall would give in and let him sink into it. “After you fell into that little trap, I told him that he should surrender if he didn’t want anything to happen to you. He still tried to run, that poor little thing. He clearly doesn’t care about your wellbeing very much.”

Tubbo doesn’t say anything. He is fairly sure that Dream is lying, that’s just something he would do - but the seed of doubt has already started to take root inside his mind. Tommy wouldn’t do that, he wouldn’t put Tubbo’s life in danger - right? And Tubbo wouldn’t want him to risk his life for him, he’d want Tommy to escape and save himself. If Dream is telling the truth, he should be happy.

So why isn’t he?

“I would have let you go,” Dream continues, words falling from his lips like poison, “but he was being so difficult. I needed some kind of… insurance, you know? I don’t think he hates you, Tubbo, he just got scared. That’s understandable. I’m sure he still cares about you, somewhere deep down. Very deep down. You’re here so he wouldn’t do anything stupid.”

“I’m… a hostage?” Tubbo can’t fully stop his voice from shaking.

“Well, that’s one way of saying it. I’d like to think that you’re more of a… permanent guest.” His voice sounds more serious now, it’s teetering on the edge of a more cold, more threatening tone. “I’m going to be honest with you. I can’t afford to kill Tommy, not yet anyway. I just need to contain him. Keep him somewhere safe, where he can’t hurt others or himself. It’s for the best of everyone.” Dream lowers himself to the ground, kneeling in front of Tubbo, their eyes on the same level now. Scared, light blue eyes are staring into unmoving black dots on a mask. “But you? You’re nothing to me. You’re not a hero, you’re just a sidekick. You’re not important. You’re something I can afford to lose. So if I were you, I’d hope that Tommy stays on his best behavior. I’d really, really hope that he still cares about you.”

With those words, Dream gets back up and turns his back to Tubbo. “I think that was all,” he says, his voice back to its normal, cheerful sound. “Don’t worry, I’m going to be visiting you again very soon. You’re not going to be lonely in here.” The platform is back, sent over the lava by Sam, and it carries Dream away. Something happens on the other side - buttons are pressed, levers are pulled - and more lava flows from the ceiling to enclose Tubbo’s little cell again.

He is alone again.

He decides not to think about Dream’s words right now. Whether all of it was true or every single word a lie, mentally beating himself over it isn’t going to help him. He needs to do something real, something that will help him.

Dream might have only visited him to taunt and to manipulate, but he also gave Tubbo one crucial piece of information. _I just need to contain him. Keep him somewhere safe, where he can’t hurt others or himself._ Tubbo is fairly sure he knows exactly what Dream meant by that. What place on the server could be safer than the one Tubbo is locked in right now?

Tommy is somewhere in this prison. He is not far, he might only be a couple dozen blocks away. The thought feels comforting, even though Dream’s lies ( _are they lies?_ ) are casting a shadow over him.

Tubbo can’t afford to stop hoping. He needs to start working on the plan.

The weak spot of the cell is definitely the food hatch, that’s for sure. There has to be empty space above the cell for the redstone. And if Tubbo knows anything about Sam and the way he works with redstone, the whole thing is probably automatized throughout the entire prison. One press of a button, one serving of raw potatoes to every cell. Easy. Fast. Efficient.

It also means the redstone must connect the cells to each other. The empty space above Tubbo’s cell might extend all the way across the lava until it reaches Tommy’s cell, which has a similar hatch.

It’s not much, but it is something.

Tubbo waits for the hatch to open, to drop the food into his cell. It’s too high to reach, it’s only open for a few fleeting seconds, and it’s too small to fit through. But it’s still a glimmer of hope, a tiny, tiny flame that Tubbo is trying to keep alive in the storm of doubt and despair.

First he needs some kind of a tool to work with. He considers a few options - the books are too soft, the lectern too heavy to lift. But he has the cauldron that acts as a sink. He has water. And there’s no lack of lava.

He forms his hands into a cup and carefully fills it with water. This is going to be tricky. The heat is almost unbearable even at this side of the cell, several meters away from the lava. Getting closer to it will probably hurt. A lot. But he has no options, he has to take what has been offered.

One shaky step after another he approaches the lava wall, extending his arms in front of him. His fingers burn, his forearms burn, he can’t breathe. But he gets closer. And closer. Close enough to splash the water at the wall of lava, close enough that most of it hits the same spot. 

He stumbles backwards, panting and shaking, and pushes his hands into the cauldron. They are red and they burn and sting. But there’s a piece of stone on the floor in front of the lava.

Okay. Next step. Wait for the food.

He has to try several times. The clock on his wall is vague, it doesn’t show numbers, only the general time of day, but Tubbo can use it to know approximately when the hatch is going to open. He drags the lectern in the middle of the room and climbs on it, limbs shaking from exhaustion - this is so _stupid_ , he’s strong, he could do this without even breaking a sweat without that dumb elder guardian - and the hatch opens and closes and he’s too slow. 

He spends hours standing on the lectern. So many times he doesn’t react fast enough when the hatch opens, so many times he has to climb down before it even happens, because his legs are too tired and he’s starting to worry about falling down on the hard obsidian floor.

And then, after several days of trying, it works. The hatch opens, Tubbo dodges the falling potatoes, stuffs the piece of stone between it and prays it doesn’t break.

It doesn’t. The hatch stays open.

Time for step three.

Tubbo’s arms are burning from strain and from the steaming hot air this close to the ceiling, but he forces the hatch to open a little bit more and wiggles his hand through it. There’s redstone, just as he was expecting, connecting an unseen piston to the piece of stone on the ceiling. He fumbles around a little bit more, his arm in an awkward position, without being able to see what he’s touching… but he can feel it. And he’s fairly sure he’s found a redstone torch. It’s not activated, Tubbo can’t feel the steady hum of energy flowing through it, so it must be connected to something that’s keeping it off. If he detaches it…

Tubbo wraps his fingers around the torch and _pulls_. It comes loose fairly easily and he can feel it start to pulse with energy. Great. 

What can he do with it?

He decides to try the simplest solution: stick it somewhere else. It’s risky, since he can’t see what he’s doing, but he uses his fingertips to make an opening in the path of red powder and mounts the torch to the wall. It attaches to it automatically, like it was made for it. Of course, it is.

The whole system hums to life, powered by this new source of energy. The hatch slides fully open and Tubbo can partly stick his head through the hole, enough to see what’s inside if he’s standing on his tippy toes. It’s still not big enough to crawl through, but at least now he can see the tunnel. The lectern wobbles dangerously.

He was right - the tunnel, or tube or whatever it is, is far longer than the length of his cell. Lines of red extend too far away to see, illuminating the darkness with a faint red glow.

If his food hatch opened, does it mean the hatches in every other cell opened too?

“Hello?”

His voice sounds small and scared, he doesn’t want to draw attention to what he’s doing, he doesn’t know how far his voice will reach, carried by the echoes in the tunnel. He tries again, a little bit louder. “Hello?”

“Tubbo? Is that you?”

A choked up sound escapes Tubbo’s mouth. It’s Tommy. Tommy is here, he’s _here_ , he might be imprisoned but he’s alright, he’s not dead, _he’s not dead_ -

“Hello?” Tubbo’s voice sounds frantic, almost panicked, he’s clinging to the chance of getting to talk with Tommy again and he’s scared it will disappear, phase through his fingers when he tries to grab it. “It’s me! Tommy, it’s me, I’m here!”

“Thank goodness Tubbo, I was so fucking worried! Are you okay, man? I thought Dream did something to you, he came here and he threatened me, almost made me push him into that fucking lava pool - god, I can’t think clearly, it’s so fucking hot in here, I feel like I’m going to melt into a puddle.” Tommy’s voice sounds like it’s coming from somewhere very far away, half of it is just echoes of echoes, and it’s hard to make out the words - but it’s Tommy nevertheless. Tubbo is laughing now, just from the joy of hearing his voice again, he’s trying to keep himself together but he missed him so much, these were the longest three days of his life. Sobs mix in with the laughter, he sounds pathetic and he doesn’t even care. “Same here, I, I hate it so much. I could kill someone to get back to Snowchester right now.”

“Imagine you’re lying on a pile of snow,” Tommy’s voice says, and Tubbo closes his eyes and imagines. “Think about how cold it would feel. Remember the icy water? We should go for a swim together. And then roll around in the snow.”

“And, and sit outside until it starts snowing,” Tubbo adds, “until the nightfall, can you imagine? So cold and dark and quiet.”

“No more bubbling, that sound is driving me nuts!”

“Or that horrible orange light!”

“Or this fucking _heat_!”

They laugh, they laugh together and they are happy even if everything around them seems hopeless. Tubbo sniffs and wipes away something wet from his cheek. He didn’t even notice he was crying. “Tommy,” he asks, and his voice is only shaking a little bit, “are you real? Are you actually there?”

There is a moment of silence and suddenly Tubbo is sure that Tommy has disappeared, that it was all his imagination, and he’s about to panic when he hears Tommy’s voice again. “Yeah, man, of course I’m real. Why are you asking? Has Dream been there?”

“Yes, he was here a few days ago, I think…” Tubbo doesn’t want to think about the things Dream said, he doesn’t want to remember them. They are lies, just lies, unless they are not.

“Listen to me, Tubbo, this is important. Don’t listen to anything he says.” Tommy’s voice sounds more scared now, not for himself, but for Tubbo. He’s worried, he’s worried about him - that means he must care about him, right? “He’s dangerous, he gets inside your head, he can really fuck you up if you give him the chance. Whatever you do, _don’t listen to him_ , okay?”

“Okay,” Tubbo answers, unsure of why Tommy knows so much about Dream’s skills in getting inside someone’s head. “I won’t, I won’t. I promise. If he tries anything with me, I’ll let it all go in through one ear and out through the other.” He pauses. “Tommy, how did you know to warn me about him?”

Tommy is silent for a long time before answering. “I never told you about the exile, did I?”

“No, I don’t think you -”

His sentence is cut off by a series of loud _clunks_ from somewhere further along the tunnel. The other end of the redstone wire has stopped glowing and the darkness is quickly approaching him. Sam must have noticed that something was wrong with the redstone and overridden it in some way, shutting down the whole system. Tubbo pulls his head down through the hatch just in time before it slams shut with another _clunk_.

“Tommy?”

No answer. They can’t hear each other anymore.

Tubbo climbs down from the lectern and his feet barely support him. He talked with Tommy, they were so close, or that’s what it felt like. Tommy is in here.

Tommy is in here and Tubbo is going to get them out.

Even if he’s just a sidekick.

* * *

Sam is staring at the flashing red error signal on the ceiling and thinking about what to do.

He should fix it. He really should. This is a temporary solution - right now the food hatches can’t be used at all. He needs to go through the delivery system, find out where the malfunctioning happened and what caused it, fix it and then turn the system back on.

Or he could just pull the lever right now, restart the system and leave the fault in there.

If Dream knew he even considered something like that, he… Sam doesn’t even want to think what Dream would do. He knows it wouldn’t be pleasant for him.

What Dream is doing right now isn’t pleasant for Tommy and Tubbo, though, and Sam doesn’t know how to feel about it.

He was okay with it when Dream arrived with Tommy - he could understand that, he could let it slide. He and Tommy were never that close, and he knows the boy has caused way too much chaos and havoc in the server. He was fine with escorting the defeated teen into a cell and leaving him there. He didn’t feel bad when the flow of lava blocked Tommy from his view. He hasn’t been thinking about how he was sitting in the corner of his cell, looking like he had lost absolutely everything. He hasn’t been thinking about the fear he could see on Tommy’s face all the way across the lava pool when Dream came to visit him.

He hasn’t been thinking about any of that, and if he has, it’s not because he pities Tommy or thinks this is wrong.

Because he doesn’t.

He’s just a warden, it’s not his job to tell Dream how to use his own prison.

But he has been thinking about Dream carrying the unconscious Tubbo through the same doors. He has been thinking about the way Dream told him to stay out of his business when he dared to, with the utmost caution, question him. He has been thinking about the few words he could hear from their conversation when Dream was visiting Tubbo.

_Insurance. Sidekick. Not important._

Sam might not have much care for Tommy, but Tubbo is his friend.

He makes his decision and pulls the lever. The error signal goes quiet and stops flashing red. Whatever fault one of the prisoners managed to cause is still there.

But that’s not his problem.

_Something I can afford to lose._

Of course Sam is scared of Dream. Everyone is. But unlike Tubbo, Sam is something he can’t afford to lose.

He hopes that it will protect him if Dream ever finds out about this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This turned out... longer than I thought it would. Wow. I almost divided it into two separate chapters, but I had already decided that this fic will have 3 chapters and I want to have 1 main POV per chapter. Tubbo just had a LOT to go through in this one.
> 
> Like I said before, feedback is extremely appreciated!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading all the way to the end! This is a part 1 of 3 and I have a general idea of where I want to take this. Every chapter will have a different POV. Some of the details depend on stuff we see on streams, especially if someone DOES end up in the Vault tonight (fingers crossed!) so I can't promise a date for the next chapter, but I'm excited to get to work more on this story. Feedback is super appreciated!


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